Mechanical Freak

We welcome esteemed sociologist Jerry Lembcke to talk about how the memory of the Vietnam War was both recreated and used in the 1980s and 1990s to unify public sentiment against the liberatory movements of the 1960s. Lembcke reminds us that even in the creation of memory, there is a political struggle for the future that needs to be waged.

Jerry Lembcke is the author of many important books about Vietnam and memory, including:

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (2000)

Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal (2010)

Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today (2021)

Visit the Ending the Myth page for updates, sources, and suggested readings

Up Next: We will be discussing the episodes 22-24. We’ll go a little deeper into what allowed capital to turn the tables on the American working class and tie some strings together from these episodes.

Show music by Bjorn/Fleksor

Show art by Carl